Newest queer-dance-pop sensation Frankmusik gets a lot of love from the blogosphere and fellow musicians too. Naturally, we love his stuff too. My favourite is a sad one, Done, Done but the charts need hits and Better Off As Two is a perfect dancefloor filler if someone has enough good-will to appreciate the beauty of pop music. The single drops in April and you can check the video below. Now, Justin Faust is like a total fit for our blog (post), if you consider our love for smooth, tasteful disco stuff. You know, he was remixed by Russ Chimes, he remixed College, DVAS, Electric Youth, BMX, Daft Punk even Britney… Lot of creativity and production. My feeling about a new dj is like…I’m curious if he or she can present a taste in choosing songs to remix. I think it takes thought and passion to struggle with tradition, influences and stuff and if a dj (or a musician, more generally) can show me a good semi-narrative of songs, tell a great story about his taste or something in remixes or sounds than I’m ready to accept it. Justin Faust with his amazing collection of tracks is ready shake the clubs. This Frankmusik rework which he just sent to yours truly, Kunk, is a cool synth-disco transformation of the original in the french touch fashion. Dig those keys!

PS. We didn’t know when we received the track that it’s made for/gonna be on the another remix project, Proyecto Batidora from the amazing Buffet Libre guys. Way to go!

Frankmusik – Better Off As Two (Justin Faust remix) [zshare] // [ysi]

After making the best album of 2006, Portland’s The Thermals, one of my favourite “new” bands return with a new single preceeding the new lp on a new label. Kill Rock Stars are gonna release Now We Can See on 17th of April. The title-giving single is out now. Fucking cool single with a monumental start. Less like the ‘death of capitalism and apocalypse impending’-themed last one, still, I would totally give them an award or something for desperate and passionate love songs rapped up in noisy indie-punk stuff. (Although they ironically label themselves “neo-grunge”, “post-power-pop” but I kinda disagree with them, not the ‘post’ but the dashes are what make you sound smarter.) The voice of Hutch Harris is just so full of tragedy and power that accompanied with the whirlwind guitars, it’s like revelation, seriously. Listen to the lyrics, pretty damn good stuff. Below you can find the demo of Now We Can See and My World. If you wanna hear the produced songs, you have buy them! You don’t wanna miss when the secondary vocals kick in in My World, Jesus!

The Thermals – Now We Can See (demo) [zshare] // [ysi]

The Thermals – My World (demo) [zshare] // [ysi]

Oh, yes. My love for Anoraak just got renewed and I found a new love, the project called sayCeT. Jesus, the remix of Nightdrive with You is just mindblowing. For one, it manages to captures the essence of the original, the vocals and the sound. For two, it’s sooo different. Really, like a different track. This stuff should be impossible. The work on the vocal is amazing. The whole atmosphere got a epic, M83-esque edge. Confusing and sad, the melancholic aspect of the song was pretty much blown up in an intense dream narrative. The original song is about an actual drive at night. The remix is about a dream: a drive on the shore of the ocean, your reflection in the water, shifting between the waves that crash on the rocks, the blurred image on the same two-dimensional space as the sky and the stars. If the GRUM remix is the best for dancefloors, this one is destined to attract the sitting-at-home artistic part of your soul. sayCeT is Pierre Lefeuvre, a composer from Paris who is not obsessed with dance-sounds but the more artistic electro of, for example, Boards of Canada. He works with a VJ and a vocalist to create his production. Check out the original tracks and the Radiohead remix too!

Anoraak – Nightdrive with You (sayCeT remix) [zshare] // [ysi]

Whoa, so much is happening in 2k9! Metric are gonna release their 4th full-lenght on April 14, it’s entitled Fantasies. They haven’t really done anything in 4 years (their memory was kept alive by the MSTRKRFT remix of Monster Hospital). I’ve been listening to the band since Old World Underground and although I’m not a crazy fan, I’ve always liked them. You know, krafty stuff with a girl in the front line. Indie rock, dancey sound and hints of suicide and deep sadness from Canada…what else could you wish for? I told you, Canada is mental. And Emily Haines! Jesus. You must know the Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton which is her side project where she’s not just a frontgirl for a band but she, you know, shows an alternative side in the fashion of PJ Harvey or Cat Power. Now back to Fantasies, I have high hopes for the record. Like the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs* just not as high. And I don’t only have I hopes, I’m pretty much sure that it’ll be awesome. Listen to this fantastic (oops) acoustic version as a teaser and order the album or buy it when it comes out.

Metric – Help I’m Alive (Acoustic) [zshare] // [ysi]

*Not gonna blog about this one. It’s overblogged. It’s a 7 out of 10 and I really like it, not in the group of snobs I guess.

So this post totally should have occurred last week, since this past saturday Kunk had a dive-bar hair metal party that was über-fun. However it’s never too late for ripped jeans, right? Though we’ll love disco synths till the day we die, there always needs to be record scratching pauses to cleanse the pallete from time to time. The videos to all the below are seared into my brain like a cauterized etch-a-sketch.

What the fuck happened to Kip Winger by the way? Or do i want to know?

Winger – Seventeen [mediafire] // [ysi]

Motley Crue – Girl Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away) [mediafire] // [ysi]

Poison – Unskinny Bop [mediafire] // [ysi]

Warrant – Down Boys [mediafire] // [ysi]

Sort of out of nowhere that damn Erik Prydz redonk of the Steve Winwood classic has been reverberating in the space of mostly air between my ears. So much so that we had to throw it down at the mini-Kunk of this past weekend (which was great fun, btw). I love how the video doubled down on the irony factor when considering that Winwood is basically an adult-contemp version of Stryper (Christian music, that is).

Bangalter did one of the many remixes of it — the Daft Mania one, naturally. The original stands the test of time though…

Erik Prydz – Call on Me [zshare] // [ysi]

Erik Prydz – Call on Me (Daft Mania Rework) [zshare] // [ysi]

Steve Winwood – Valerie [zshare] // [ysi]

Speaking of former Kunk guests who are putting out a full-length in the coming weeks, the Thieves Like Us guys are about to release their LP (later CD) in a short while. That bundle of tracks have been chomping at the bit for a while now, it’s about time they officially see the light! I don’t think there’s anything more that we can add that hasn’t been said already by the guys in their interview with a busty Hungarian lass at our party last fall (though our fave bit is at the end of the vid when our good buddy Adrian wanders on stage to offer a beer while they’re still playing… too cute).

You can pick up a copy of Play Music on shelflife records.

Thieves Like Us – Fass [mediafire] // [ysi]

Were accustomed to seeing (former Kunk guest; and super nice chap)  GRUM in the ‘remix’ portion of any given track title, but this time Supermal have turned the tables on him and made a smooth yet bouncy house-pop edition of the Runaway original. But get used to this as GRUM churns out more tracks for his upcoming LP which should be dropped in a month not too far from now. We’re pretty much happy with anything he’s producing and/or editing, gonna be a fab full length to be sure. For that matter, who the hell manages full-lengths these days? Answer: not many… but those who do have to channel a lot of creative forces to complement the work discipline… kudos to those who manage during our ’2 hour single remixes on lappy’ days.

Grum – Runaway (Supermal Remix) [zshare] // [ysi]

Well, it’s weird to write about something that you know all too well. There’s this thing in Hungary, called The Moog. They are a young indie-band. They managed to score something that other’s from the country couldn’t: a deal with an American label (big up to MuSick records) and American tours. Which is awesome. They are getting ready to drop the second album later this year. The album is preceeded by a single You Raised a Vampire which has an interesting b-side, a cover of Bauhaus’ Passion of Lovers, featuring the bassist from Bauhaus cause he liked it. Great fucking story for a Hungarian band, isn’t it? I wanna add that they’ll be in American soon, playing at SXSW and making a music video. A new one. Cause the aformentioned single is accompanied by a music video which you can check here (there’s an interview in Hungarian too). I’m not too fond of the video but it’s way better than anything else coming from this shitty country. This is nearly true for the band itself with the exceptions of other indie groups. The theme of the song and video is like turn of the century, neo-gothic style, vampires and love love love. The atmosphere of the band is more simple usually: they are like, you know, they rock. Good guys, good music which is not as common in our little world as you might think. Heavy motherfucking guitars, spooky synths, some depht to the lyrics, great vocals and the rhythm section carries the whole thing and there’s even variety in the songs that’s like unexpected with this kind of music. Buy their stuff and go to the gigs in the US. If you’re here in Budapest, they are gonna play tomorrow.

The Moog – You Raised a Vampire [zshare] // [ysi]

I spent much of my teenage years working in a suburban video store. A colleague kept raving about some sci-fi movie that i had to see. I finally gave in… it wasn’t bad… the plot was something like, this sudden worldwide event happens and there are no people left on earth. Actually there are just a few, and they each think they are alone until one by one they meet each other. Turns out the only reason they lived is because while the event happened, they were in the process of dying at that very moment. It was the dying people who lived. It had this really cool final scene where the protagonists look at this star-planet-ring thing. The whole shebang was called The Quiet Earth. I hadn’t thought about that movie in almost 20 years, when what do i see, but Quebec-based Le Matos, referencing that obscure movie with their song title! Crazy shit.

That whole weird referential story aside, I’m hoping to hear more from these guys. Some epic starhunting electro coming out of Montreal. The original is vocal-less, while the two edits are dropped on some french-language morsels. Le Matos is right up the alley of all those fans of the you-know-which decade influencing the you-know-which style.

Le Matos – Quiet Earth [zshare] // [ysi]

Coeur De Pirate -  Comme Des Enfants (Le Matos Andy Carmichael Remix) [zshare] // [ysi]

Numéro# – Star Model (Le Matos Poindexter Remix) [zshare] // [ysi]